What not drop into Excelsior Jones in Ashfield?
Antony Fung from Ashfield Real Estate recommends to visit Excelsior Jones!
SO WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOUR Surry Hills hipster-barista days start
to segue into your dude-dad era? You move west, young man, to a place
that has houses with child-friendly backyards - and you start taking as
much care with the babycino as with the single-origin ristretto.
Case in point: Anthony Svilicich and business partner
James Naylor, who used to run the buzzy Le Monde in Foveaux Street,
have moved 10 clicks west and converted an old convenience store into a
cool, white, big-windowed, tall-ceilinged cafe.
Svilicich is now a local (although still quietly amazed
at seeing a Shetland pony in the street instead of the usual fixed-gear
bicycle) and has been overwhelmed by the number of people welcoming
the cafe with open arms. ''It's a beautiful, heritage-listed area with
a far greater sense of community,'' he says.
In response to the new demographic, the menu is kid-friendly enough
to have pikelets and a simple ham-and-cheese toasty as well as that milk
bar classic of yesteryear, the fluorescent lime spider. There's also a
good-looking cheeseburger that comes with a pile of unequivocally
deep-fried chunky spuds on the side that gets every head turning each
time it goes to a table.
Chef Adrian Borg bustles about the large professional
kitchen dishing up snappy breakfast/brunch plates of smoky salmon
rillettes and poached egg on toast and lunches of serious slow-roasted
lamb sandwiches; the kind you have to sit down and eat from a plate.
On
weekends, breakfast luckily extends all day, so you don't have to get
up early for what is rapidly turning into the hot order: a rich,
shreddy, pork hock and potato hash tossed with nutty fried buckwheat
and topped with a perfectly poached egg. Sleeping in is probably a
distant, pre-kids memory anyway
.
There are a few cakey things upfront - anzac biscuits,
choc-chip muffins - but I'm thinking they'll need a few more as they go
along.
Excelsior Jones is new, noisy, and still a bit gawky - no matter
where you sit, you think you're in someone's way - but the coffee side
of things couldn't be more adult. Barista Julian Beresford runs a Five
Senses custom blend through the powder-coated, matt black Synesso that's
smooth, rich, and milk-friendly. Makes you feel sorry for all those
hipsters stuck back there in poor, isolated Surry Hills.
Do … have the lime spider.
Don't … drive straight past, there's very little signage.
Dish … pork hock hash with poached egg, $16.
Vibe … cornershop cool.
Antony Fung
Ashfield Real Estate
Ashfield Real Estate
www.ashfield-realestate.com.au
1300 938 931
